Saving Christmas!

Missions:
Mission Name: Home Alone
Rank: A-Rank
Mission Location: Any Location

Challenges: N/A
Task: A band of robbers has been hitting up homes in the wealthy sector of the village as of late. You are to hold up in the home authorities believe will be targeted next and to stop these wet bandits by any means necessary.

Word Count Requirement: 4,000 WC
Reward: 8,000 Ryō / 40 AP / 2,000 Winter Equinox Tickets / 1x Crescent Dice (d6)

Character Requirements: N/A
Character Exclusive: N/A

Mission Name: Merry Christmas!
Rank: S-Rank
Mission Location: Any Location

Challenges: ARC
Task: Everybody knows Santa Claus is one of the most legendary Space-Time specialists. This year, however, the man has been plagued with a mysterious illness, and he won't be able to make all the deliveries by himself. Help the man make his deliveries on time to save Christmas!

Word Count Requirement: 5,000 WC
Reward: 12,000 Ryō / 60 AP / 2,500 Winter Equinox Tickets / 1x Blank Dice (d4)

Character Requirements: N/A
Character Exclusive: N/A
WC Required: 4500 each

Honey Bunches sits in his room, his unused weaponry leaning against the wall of the small house in their scabbards and pouches respectively, pictures of drawn passersbys and different town posters scattered around the wall with no particular theme. Rubbing his hands together, he checks his calendar on his wall and sighs. ‘It’s been two years since I’ve done anything other than sit in this room with this unused weaponry and my collection…’ He sighs, stressed from inactivity and picks up his collection of sketches of his friends.

He has one that looks like a young man leering, and he holds on that one for a while. ‘I wonder what you’re up to…?’ He doesn’t ponder on this question long, as he mostly prefers thinking on anything other than his failure to maintain his work, using old payments to make do. He looks at his alcohol collection in the corner, picking up one of the imported bottles of rice wine and moving it closer to him, putting it on top of a few other sketched portraits. He uncorks it and pours it into a small cup, before putting the cup on top of a small hot plate so as to warm up the rice wine. He hums to himself as the day comes to an end, not of any song in particular but more of a gentle hum that starts and stops with each task. As the wine starts being heated, he looks into the cup to see that the wine is mostly unmoving, and he stirs it with his finger, smiling to himself and grabbing a packet of dried fish and a packet of dried fruits. Opening the packet of fruit, he starts to eat the dried fruit as the wine starts having a small amount of bubbles, and he pulls it off the heater, concerned that he heated it up for too long. Touching it with his finger, he decides that it’ll be alright, and carefully sips the drink, sighing with relief and turning his attention to the dried fish. Without any seasoning except for salt and pepper he stirs the contents as soon as he opens the packet, leaving sauce off the fish for now so as to avoid damaging the packet.

He starts to consume the fish on the inside, gingerly scraping the sides of the packet with his fork so as to get all of the meat out, pouring it into a small bowl so that he can add a small amount of soy sauce from the small fridge in his room. He sips the wine and eats the fish, popping a few pieces of fruit into his mouth every now and again for a while. He doesn’t do much other than eat and drink, calm as the street outside his house, and notices that it had begun to snow, the wind carrying snowflakes past his window in a satisfying way, and he hoped that he wouldn’t have to walk through much of it the next time he went outside, pleased in his thoughts that it would surely melt by morning time.

He absent mindedly picks up a lighter and flicks it, a pack of cigarettes stale from age sitting besides it. Stepping outside, he lights the cigarette, and coughs as its too stale for consumption, throwing the cigarette into an ashtray and picking up from another pack he had, and moved the old one back to where he kept it. He had picked it up from one of his friends, and as he hasn’t seen him since, it was a reminder that he was starting to become something of a hoarder for random objects. Deciding instead to throw it into the trash, Honey threw several other things in his room into the trash, including some of the sketches that he had any any bottles laying around. There wasn’t but a small one that he picked up at the corner store, and when he threw it away he felt satisfied with cleaning his room, tracing himself back to his bed and back to the chair, pacing between them unable to decide where he wants to sit. Deciding on the chair, he looks at his small weapon collection and briefly debates whether or not he should get rid of them too, now that he wasn’t an effective user of weapons. Deciding against it, he instead stares out for a few moments, before turning his gaze to the weapons.

Picking up his weapons, he leaves them in their scabbard and holds them out in front of him, lining the handle up with his arm as if he were to use them, before being drawn to the window, looking out. Upon seeing the setting sun, he sighs as another day ends, marking his calendar with an ‘X’ for the present day. ‘Another day, another day of wasted oppurtunity. At least it’s not very eventful out there, I can properly relax…’ He grits his teeth as he puts down his weapon, unfamiliar with how exactly to use it now that he’s been off his training regimen. He replaces his weapon against the wall where he keeps it, picking up a puch of weapons and checking on them.

He lazily paws through his kunai, looking for the dull ones and pulling them out. After so long being used as cutting utensils for his boredom against wood and stone, some of their tips were dulled to a point where they wouldn’t stick in a target, and he puts those up against a file, adjusting the kunai to varying degrees until the edge and point are sharp again. He looks them over and quickly places them back in the bag, before he looks out the window to see that it’s snowing, even in the middle of the desert. “What an evening.”

Looking around, he tries to see if there’s any tracks in the snow, but whatever carts or people that were moving through’s tracks were quickly being covered by the snow. The evening was quieter than usual so he was restless. Moving across the room and taking a seat in a chair, he prepares himself for the end of his evening and starts getting ready to go to sleep, getting undressed from his usual clothes and getting into pajamas.

Staring out his bedroom window in a seat, Honey Bunches notices someone bundled up in a heavy jacket walking through, going door to door, handing out pamphlets. The assumedly man has a large cart behind him filled with what looks like boxes and bags, as well as what looks like a terrible mass of metal ribbon. With a deep whiff of the air, he doesn’t detect anyone he knows to be a threat, and watches him as he continues up the block, several small houses away from his. ‘Is he going to come to my door…?’

Checking on his calendar, Honey Bunches doesn’t see anything that would be marking the arrival of a visitor, nor was he much in the loop for tasking and what the man could want from him. He watches as several of the houses do not answer the door, as if they’re still not home, and he trains his eye on the buildings that have lights on, the snow glowing on the ground below as the world begins to be covered by shadows. The setting sun makes him chilly, and he suddenly forgets about the man going door to door.

Although he sees the man pass in front of his building, the sudden knocking still shocks him, and he lifts himself audibly from his chair and goes to the door to answer.


“Hey there resident!” He says, holding out his hand. Honey Bunches gives him a high five, but the man pulls his hand back and looks irritated. “No, identification please!”

Honey Bunches, sheepish, nods and goes back into his room, picking up his ID card and handing it to the man. “Its your lucky day resident!” The visitor states, adjusting his scarf and hood. “We have had a terrible accident in the grove, and a very important delivery man got horribly mutilated by a pack of wild dogs, I won’t bore you with the details…” The man continues off, more or less stating that Santa got fucked up horrendously, acting as if it was normal news talking about the big Claus in public.

“No, he’s not real.” Honey says, thankful that he hasn’t drank from the water supply recently. The visitor nods to Honey, “Well,” He starts, “These presents need delivered, and since we haven’t seen your ID around the office completing missions, it looks like we found the perfect person to help us.” The man starts rifling through the boxes, and starts setting up a tent in front of Honey Bunches house. “Here you go, just deliver these across the street and you’ll be good to go. You’ll save christmas!” The man laughs, with a cheery “Ho ho ho!”

Honey Bunches nods, feeling irked by the visitors lining up of tasks. “Okay…” He starts closing the door on the man, but he sticks his foot through the doorway, “Uh uh uh!” It seems as if it would be impossible to deny this request to save christmas, even though teh man seemed to be checking door to door at random. At this short of notice though, Honey Bunches had no idea how he would be able to deliver all of the presents before night time, at which point they would either be asleep or irritated at visitors, if not both.

“I’m going to drop these presents off. Get it done before the day closes out and you’ll be good to go! You’ll save christmas!” He reminds, as if he had practiced this line numerous times before.

“And if I can’t make the deadline?” Honey crosses his arms, letting the man open the door again to a normal width. The man doesn’t seem to be frustrated, and in fact seems more concerned with christmas being saved, and because Honey doesn't have any tasks lined up, it was easy to see why they would want him to perform this amount of work. “Well, that won’t be good news will it? I know you’ll find a way to squeak it out.”

Honey ignores his last statement, continuing “So you’re saying a package delivery company registered–”

The man cuts him off again, “No, Santa and his merry elves!” he says with a great big grin. “Santa got stampeded from his animals, a reindeer.” “And that means…” Honey tries desperately to have the man change his mind, although stuck on how exactly to go about that. “And that means we need you to deliver the presents! How many times do I have to tell you, you’ll be saving christmas for all the little girls and boys! What an honor, to take Santa’s place this close to christmas. The kids will be expecting someone to drop by! Plus, there’s plenty of free cookies and milk…” The man says it as if its an alluring concept, to have to stomach that many cookies and milk combined.

“What, like a cup and a few cookies per house? How the hell am I supposed to…” Honey looks at his sake on the table, “No milk for me thanks, it might leave an aftertaste, being left out all night. Plus, how am I supposed to consume that many milk and cookies? It’d be too much for me after the second or third cup!” Honey argues, hoping that since he wouldn’t consume the offerings to Santa, the man would take his leave. “You won’t get out of it that easily! Considering…” The man starts and Honey Bunches prepares himself for the speech that most of the working ninja around the town would have prepared, saying that it’s dishonerable to shirk duty in the villages time of need. “... And that leaves you to take on the responsibility,” the visitor continues, going on about the lists of people who have been performing much more for the holiday season, and how Honey Bunches hasn’t scratched the surface for what was required of all of the people for the ‘holiday spirit’.

Honey sighs. “Fine, you christmas imp. I’ll deliver your packages.” He begrudgingly picks up a few of the poles of the tent to protect the presents from the snow while the man lays a tarp down in front of Honey’s house. “Shouldn’t I just keep them inside…?” The man shakes his head, “No worries, nobody is going to steal them. You should be able to carry them all, I’ll leave a smaller cart with you while I go find others to deliver more presents. You have to deliver all of them I give you. Don’t look so glum! There are plenty of other ninja delivering presents for Santa, and if you run into any of them, make sure to say “‘ho ho ho’ or ‘merry christmas’, something of that variety so they know you’re in the christmas spirit.”

“Now, that’s not in the christmas spirit! Get it together!” The man shakes his head, before thrusting what looks to be a santa outfit and beard onto him, as well as a fake gut. “You can keep these for yourself…” He says, not in the slightest looking sheepish at the smell of the costume. It smells like a mix between a mess hall and the streets outside, with fur of some sort of creature covering certain areas, noticeable mostly in the white portions of the santa costume.

“Also,” The man says, finishing unloading, “Make sure you read the pamphlet. You shouldn’t have any problems, but there are folks out there… You know, I’ll let the pamphlet explain. You shouldn’t have any problems.” The man repeats himself, nodding again and looking off towards the setting sun. “Get to it, and get the costume on!”

The outfit reminiscent of the Big Claus is tattered and looks to be in a horrible state, made from cheap materials, and the beard smells from Honey’s hands, a dark miasma appearing around the normally collected man. “Now listen here!” Honey starts, but the man had already dropped off the presents and clicked some sort of hole punch on a sheet of paper. “You’ll save christmas!” He reminds Honey Bunches again, quickly leaving just as soon as he thrust the filthy costume to him.

“Did you clean this from last year?!” Honey calls after him, picking up a pamphlet from atop the boxes, and reading it over top of the filthy costume. The page was somewhat snow dampened but the writing was only smeared near the edges, and was still clearly a notice warning

‘CAUTION’ the pamphlet read, ‘ROBBERS NOTED BREAKING INTO EMPTY HOUSES AND FILLED HOUSES ALIKE. TAKE CAUTION IF HOME ALONE.’

Honey Bunches notes the pamphlet, and puts it away in his pocket. Looking at the filthy costume that was thrust into his hands, he growls and walks inside, getting ready and dressed into his normal clothes before begrudgingly trying to see if the santa outfit would fit over his normal clothes. It didn’t, and he left the fake gut off. Looking at himself, he whimpered as he smelled the beard, and had to do something about the smell. Digging around for some sort of cleaning agent in his room, he noted that the presents outside his house weren’t going anywhere, so he closed the door finally. The cold air that permeated his house while the door was open was now an angrering disturbance, as his room started to smell like the street outside. He puts a mini washing machine down, and fills it with water and detergent, putting the beard in and nodding. Although it likely wouldn’t dry by the time he needs it, the beard was yellowing and sickly to begin with, and he could see as the water in the mini washing machine turning a dirty brown color.

Momentarily leaving the presents undisturbed, Honey would simply leave the door closed and forget about it, but he had to manage this task now. Pressing the costume in his hands, the material was thin over his clothes but it would work, and looking around, he could likely make some sort of beard out of pieces of his shirts, although it would look terrible.

Getting scissors and a tank top, he fashions it into the shape of a beard, and as he expected it looked supremely awful. While he was waiting, he might as well set up traps for a potential home invader, so that Honey would be able to note whether or not someone had tampered with his room. Honey wasn’t the most creative when it came to crafting rudimentary home defenses but he would still try more than tape over the door, something that would work.

Honey looks through his materials for something that he could rig up some home defense, as that was of course the first thought that came into his mind for when he was outside his small building, and couldn’t find much that he had kept in his room besides a few basic tools that most people would have access to. He also has extra shoestrings as well as regular string, and enough empty bottles in the trash to make a sort of hanging contraption that would allow him to hang something off the door that would come crashing down when the door was opened. This was about as much as Honey could figure out, and he had to get started on trying to make it work.

Honey Bunches starts tying together shoestrings so as to make a single longer string so that he can… Frustrated, he throws the shoestring on the ground and looks at his unused weaponry, a few kunai spilling out of an opened pouch. “I have some string… No wire…” He mumbles to himself, not upset but also a bit distracted as the evening waned into nightime. He continues to distract himself with this task as much as he can before he goes to deliver presents, and it was easy for him to start to figure out how these contraptions were going to work in his room, and what the set up would finally look like. Satisfied now that he was able to properly understand what it was that was going to be hanging up in his room, Honey Bunches could finally work and get distracted enough but not too much so that he would miss his deadline of delivering presents.

After about an hour of tying shurikan to thin pieces of string and a bottle to shoestring, he goes to hang it up around the room, placing things so that when they would look around the room they would get cut by the hanging blades. Would it really work? He wasn’t sure, but he likely knew that at the very least the bottle would fall and broken glass would get everywhere if someone were to break into his house. Hopefully it would all be for nothing and he wouldn’t have to worry about any breaking glass, with the exception of when he came home. Jotting down on a piece of paper, Honey Bunches sought to remind himself of this fact, so that when the door opened he would simply catch the bottle where it fell.

Before he hangs up the shurikan, he tests the bottle on the door by walking outside after setting it up, standing idly outside the door as he starts to think about the trajectory of the falling bottle, figuring it out and relaxing before he opens the door, catching the bottle as it falls in front of him instead of at his head, and he sighs, having to adjust the trajectory. Walking back inside, Honey Bunches looks up and down at what he remembered the original trajectory to be and started to adjust the shoestring so that it would work properly, cutting off a piece and finally deciding that it would be alright to hang it as is once it was shortened and adjusted. Honey spent the next few minutes adjusting and checking on this, once again standing outside the doorway and walking back into the room. This time, he was much more satisfied with the trajectory and he finally started to get to work hanging up the shurikan around the room.

They hung around like decorative paper mache, and because of their small size the shurikan would only be noticed by the reflecting light, and they were discreet enough for Honey Bunches. There was a way to slip by all of them unharmed that he had saved for himself, with a release for all of the hanging string located at the end of the somewhat discreet pathway. He looked around and wondered what else he could do. He started to stack some clothes in the way of certain stepping areas and also put a towel by the door so that whoever would come inside would likely slip. There was enough traps to fill the small room, and Honey was satisfied with his progress.

‘I’m not great at this, but I know that it’s better than nothing…” He sighed. If there were to be no home invaders, he more so put himself at risk than actually protected his house. He would rather stay guard and use his weapons in the case of burgulary, but this would have to do.

Sneaking out the walkway to get out of his house, Honey Bunches closes his door gently so as to not disturb the bottle and then lifts the handled end of the small cart he was going to be using to deliver presents, tying on the makeshift tank top santas beard and sighing, looking at the first address on his docket.

Making his way down the street, Honey Bunches eyes idly panned the houses. The first delivery wassn’t for another few houses, and as such he took his time evaluating the different houses, and many of them were decorated with wreathes and different kinds of lighting, which looked as if they were a type of burning decoration that cast a comfortable yellow glow on certain doorsteps and on certain areas of the street.

“Ho ho ho,” Honey says to a group of passersby, and they do not stop but still laugh, responding with a ‘happy holidays’ of their own. Making his way to the first delivery spot, Honey Bunches knocks on the door, before being greeted by a kindly looking fellow. “Oh, hello.” He takes the present out of Honey’s hand without much celebration, and nods. “Thank you ninja.”

Honey stares blankly as the man closes the door in his face, before continuing down the street. ‘Am I supposed to sing some sort of song…?” Honey wonders to himself, rubbing his hand against his santa costume nervously, heading a few more houses down to the next location.

Looking around, Honey’s eyes are drawn to the small and spread out groups of people returning home. It seems as if most people had returned earlier in the day in preperation for christmas or were busy with nighttime work. Honey understood that the holiday would change some people’s schedules, especially considering what happened to the big claus.

Honey looked a few houses ahead and then sighed again, taking a deep breath of the winter air, continuing with his task.


TWC: 3890

Through the flashing of lights and a party filled dimensiom, A celebration of sorts as an oddly dressed panda had recently taken the crown of that legendary interdimensional toirnament. Zaled raised his glass as a sign of congratulations and held back a chuckle as the presumedbly eager male bear of sorts kept trying to bemuse and woo his crush. Understandably or perhaps by playful choice the dressed one may have had a thing of ownership. The two were in an seemingly case of arguments where the brown one kept being beat over the head with a gigantic fish and pointed off to a large bowl of fine fresh water to drink.

As zaled heard through murmers and rumors that was some of the fteshest one can find within the multiverse and beyond. An intruiguing prospect but knowing most bears these had much higher intellegence which made zaled not so keen in taking his own inspectiom. He instead opted for champainge from an incrediable vineyard ofvonly legendsm and joined the festivites as host glancing and upkeeping any machines overwprked or seemingly broken. After all the slower the drinks flowed the more bothersome the immediate induviduals got, and zaled prided his hosting highly.

However, as simple these times got they were not to remain for long. The interruption he felt through the dimension was familiar as a host of the familiar elves marched in with hope filled eyes but crestfelled faces. That and the man he saved in a previous encounter with a few other shinobi from his realm entered too waving to zaled and zaled in turn gave a nodd, as the man vanished speaking on a peppermint beer to try for startees, but with his twist.

fascinating, but what have the elves say now?

zaled thought as the head of the little helpers brought his case, but was clearly new speaking too formally.

"mighty zaled the host of Arubboth we as-"

zaled lifted his hand, not in the mood for such formalities.

"have a peppermint fum or something. chill out, did the big boss fail his quota or something?

zaled inquired as he decided to cut to the chase, It was onething, but the holiday realm had it's scheduel to meet in a form or another, which zaled was aware of in through his interactions, but was taken slightly off gaurd by the reply.

"s-sorry zaled, the big man is down, and even he cannot help this one, The chills assalt him, and stuff must be done to the gifts, also some sleeky sneakers decided to do a good segment of planning of robbery, however we do not know if operation was completed yet... let us pray. it is going well with the other participant."

zaled took another swing and polietly coughed as it went down the wrong pipe.

"what assistant? another set of lost shinobi wandering the realms and hopefully not throwing things in chaos, i do not want it taken on mybreputation you see."

zaled inquired as he heades towarda the office in a rush with needing to grab a travel flask of shining moon to ease the stress a little. it was a wonder why he lost hair. But he understood the cry for help, The man was willing to assist on the tasks as he had other things on mind, but a few tasks were nothing seperate to a simple few hours of kind hearted work, for ryo of course. He reached into his desk in the rexeption area, and produced black gloves and a flask of the good stuff. Taking a swing and letting it hit him as he punched in a set of numbers in his black box producing hot chocolate, and a second set a black mug of strong hot chocolate with a rich sent. The christmas land has defintly opened his dimensions snack recipes signifigantky which many enjoyed, and boonex traffic.

From gingerbread fountaina, to hit chocolate balls. A delicious encounter of the blissful dream. Zaled took a sip of the black mug as he exited the door, and the elves hurridly followed, He had a blacl and gold fur coat with boots which he changed into as per his need, a black hood behind his head, and two steaming beverages of hot chocolate in hand. The door to the realm opened and zaled's feet met the snow first gand, and a little down the way there was a boy in a humerously santa jacket that told him it all. The substitute.

His dooe to hus dimension ushered in a few dizens curious that the dimensional host had arrived and their christmas could be sated by a late night snack raid in Arrubbioth.

"out by mid night folks, or you aee banned."

zaled stated as he continued onwards to the boy and offerex him a hot chocolate.

"hear drink up, you are doing your best, the big man would be proud and surely reward your efforts. cheer up, and drink. Think this is caramel flavor, and has marshmellows, but i enjoyed a pre drink so maybe it was tge peppermint bubbles. Now tell me son did you break anything?"

zaled inquired as hevhanded the boy his hot chocolate and took up the sack and glanced around, he did well thus far but help was here now.

wc:887